This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Headgear remains contentious issue in amateur boxing

International Boxing Association has decided to do away with padded headgear for elite men at the highest levels of amateur competition. The next big event is the Elite Canadian Championships next week.

Canadian boxer Samir El-Mais, in the red, won gold at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this past summer. He will take part in the Canadian championships which start next week. (Boxing Canada / Raquel Ruiz)

Canadian boxer Brody Blair was despondent after being pulled from a fight he was winning because of a bleeding cut above his left eye.

In another bout, teammate Samir El-Mais — who can barely see because of blood gushing from a cut above his right eye — continues his fight and goes on to win gold.

The boxing tournament at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this past summer was the most high-profile display of the International Boxing Association’s decision to do away with padded headgear for elite men at the highest levels of amateur competition.

By dropping headgear, amateur boxing is going in the opposite direction of most other sports, which routinely adopt more or better safety equipment to try and protect athletes.

Article Continued Below

But the world governing body, which made the decision last year, maintains that getting rid of headgear actually makes boxers safer by reducing concussions.

“History and statistics have shown us that the headgear has provided a false sense of security for a lot of athletes,” says Boxing Canada president Pat Fiacco.

“They feel they’ve got headgear, so they can take a punch. Now, they have to be smarter. It makes for much better boxing.”

A new pro-style, 10-point scoring system that better rewards body shots was brought in with the headgear change.

Elite women and younger boxers still must wear headgear. But if actual experience bears out the governing body’s expectations, no headgear could be the norm “down the road” for all amateur boxers, Fiacco said.

But dropping the padded head guards, which cover a boxer’s forehead and the sides of his or her face, isn’t without its detractors.

It’s not brain damage he’s worried about, it’s the cuts. Which is what robbed the 22-year-old Blair of even getting a chance to fight in the medal rounds in Glasgow.

The world governing body (AIBA) has sold this change as an issue of boxer safety but Simmons, like many others, says that’s not the real motivation behind it.

“AIBA is doing it to make the sport more marketable, so people can see (boxer’s) faces,” he says.

This is the organization that considered making female boxer’s wear skirts to boost their sport’s appeal during its Olympic debut in 2012 London.

AIBA has several initiatives underway to revive interest in amateur boxing. It lost fans to MMA and because of its own unpopular punch-count computer scoring system that turned Olympic boxing into a sparring session that emphasized punch volume over technique, aggression and knockout-worthy punches.

The hope — held not just by boxing administrators but coaches and fighters as well — is that making an amateur bout look more like a professional one will win back fans.

If El-Mais’ experience is anything to go by, they may be on to something.

When pictures of his bloody quarter-final bout against England’s Warren Baister went online he got a bigger following, with people wanting to know how he was progressing through the tournament.

“Cut after cut, punch after punch, people get more excited about it,” says the 34-year-old heavyweight from Windsor, Ont.

There’s a part of him that feels that is “kind of sad,” but the boxer in him is okay with it.

If he’s going to step in a ring and risk pain while trying to inflict it on someone else, it’s better if there’s a full-house watching.

“(AIBA) is trying to hype it up, make it more interesting for people, no headgear, more knockouts, more cuts, more stoppages,” he says.

He still wears headgear in training (where the greatest volume of hits happen) but he’s happy not to have to wear it at Canadian nationals Oct 28-Nov 1 or next summer at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto.

El-Mais says he can see better without the headgear, especially when a punch is coming from the side. And, when he does get hit, he says his head doesn’t roll around as heavily as it does with the sweat-filled, padded gear.

“It helped me keep my hands up to protect my self better, to become a better boxer,” he says.

“I don’t know if it protected us. I didn’t feel punches as much.”

But then again, El-Mais says, he doesn’t feel much at all in a fight.

“When I get hit in the ring I don’t really feel anything. The nerves kick up and take over. When I get out of the ring I start feeling pain here and there and have a headache or what not.”

The cut above his right eye in the Commonwealth Games quarter-finals against England’s Warren Baister was the first of his boxing career.

“As soon as I knew my eye was cut I knew this guy was going to rush me, so I rushed him instead because I wanted to show the judges and the ref that I’m capable of fighting, even though I couldn’t see that much out of my right eye,” he says.

In El-Mais’ case, the ringside doctor who looked at the cut said he was “good to fight” and his efforts to show the ref he was capable paid off.

He won that fight, and the glue used to close the cut afterwards held fast through his next bouts. He went on to beat New Zealand’s David Light in the final and win Canada’s first Commonwealth gold since 2002.

Blair, a 22-year-old middleweight from Nova Scotia, was less fortunate.

The deeper cuts above his left eye, sustained when his first-round opponent head-butted him, reopened in his second fight against Zambia’s Benny Muziyo.

The Canadian was winning, according to the judges scorecards, with a minute left to go in the third round when the ringside doctor deemed it unsafe to let him continue.

Boxing Canada wasn’t pleased with that decision but, even if he had been allowed to finish that fight, it’s unlikely he would have been medically cleared for the next one.

“We had cuts and broken noses and jaws with headgear,” says El-Mais. “The percentage has just gone up a little without headgear.”

Boxing Canada is hoping to put some concrete numbers to the ongoing discussion about whether removing headgear has reduced concussions and how much of a factor facial cuts are now.

The new rules were in effect at last year’s Canadian championships, so the data collected then will be compared to this year’s event, Fiacco said.

Boxing Canada’s findings and those of other groups tracking the headgear effect may also serve to sway the IOC, which still has not officially decided whether headgear is on or off for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The rules have already evolved.

After the Commonwealth Games, AIBA introduced new rules to penalize boxers who cause cuts through a head-butt and now requires the barrier cream Cavilon be applied to a boxer’s face to further reduce cuts, Fiacco says.

As fighters get more experience competing without headgear, they’ll also learn to better protect themselves. But, as El-Mais pointst out, it’s still boxing.

“You’re going to get cuts and a bloody nose. It’s a brutal sport . . . we know this going in.”

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com